It’s been said many many times that nutrition is responsible for at least 75% of your muscle building effort. I think that is dramatically overstating the obvious, but nutrition is critically important to your muscle building efforts. Without the proper muscle building nutrition you will never build the physique you desire. Below are listed a few easy to follow muscle building nutrition rules that will help you get bigger and leaner. Follow these rules and you will see results, ignore them and you could be in for years of frustration.

• Eat small meals every 2-3 hours. Eating this way helps keeps your body in an anabolic state, and keeps your metabolism running along at high speeds so that you don’t get fat. If you need 3,000 calories per day to build muscle. Then it is much more effective to have five 600 calorie meals, or six five hundred calorie meals than it is to have three larger 1,000 calorie meals. Doing that will lead to fat accumulation and also has you going too long without eating which only leads to muscle loss.

• Build your meals around lean protein. Proteins (Amino acids) are what builds muscle, so every time you sit down to eat should eat certain types of proteins. This should be the primary goal of every meal. Once you have covered that, then you can add starch, vegetables and healthy fats. As the daily protein needs, you should take one gram per kilogram of body weight per day. The only time you need more than that is when you are dieting and carbohydrates are very low.

• Eat vegetables at every meal except breakfast. There are incredibly healthy because they provide lots of nutrients and fiber, they also slow down the absorption of your meals leading to less body fat accumulation.

• Eat organic foods whenever possible. There is so much artificial junk in the food we eat these days that it is really a very wise decision to eat organic as often as you can. This includes meats, fruits, veggies and grains.

• Avoid sugar, artificial sweeteners and saturated fats as much as possible (with the exception of coconut oil). Consumption of saturated fat and sugar is what leads to a wide range of health problems and diseases. Too much saturated fat and sugar also leads to inflammation in the body and can actually aggravate the nagging injuries and lead to further pain. Many people actually feel a reduction in pain in back when they cut saturated fat and sugar diet.

• Some saturated fat in meat is fine from time to time, but you should really try to cut sugar and artificial sweeteners. Although they do not talk much in this country USA, there is much evidence that artificial sweeteners are not the least bit healthy – quite the opposite!.

• Eat most of your carbs at breakfast and immediately before and after your workout. These are the times when your insulin sensitivity is at it’s highest, and when you will use carbs most efficiently with the least risk for body fat gain. Don’t be scared to eat some carbohydrates at this time because most of them will be used for building muscle and will not usually add to body fat accumulation.

• Drink at least a half gallon of water per day preferably bottled water. Doing this keeps you well hydrated which keeps your performance levels high. Even a slight decrease in hydration will cause a drop in performance. About half a gallon is a good start but anything upto a gallon is usually better, especially in the summer.

• Pay close attention to your sodium intake. When I say that I mean in the opposite direction that most people and doctors will think I mean it. I think you must be sure that your sodium intake is adequate. This is especially true for athletes who play in the summer when it’s hot and you sweat a lot. Without adequate sodium intake, your performance suffers greatly. Sodium levels also help maintain adequate strength levels during a diet.

This article was written by Jason Ferruggia who is a world famous fitness expert, well known and admired for his ability to help people build muscle as fast as possible. He is also the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine, where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. To get more muscle building nutrition tips, and to access his training program, check out. Renegade Diet Program.